Nothing Helping Your Depression & Anxiety? It Might be Trauma
Feeling Stuck
I used to consume a lot of self-help. I tried what they said: exercise, meditate, eat healthy, supplement, journal and more. Yet when I did these things, they all felt like bandaids. In my vicious cycle, I dove into more self help: habit building, morning routines, creating systems etc. All my efforts seemed disproportionate to my “healing”. I felt stuck. Sometimes this stuck would make me feel hopeless, as if this was it, this was life. This pain is your life. That thought sent me into some of my worst downward spirals. Some loving and well-intentioned supporters told me peace would be waiting once I accepted it as part of who I am, and to stop trying so hard to run from it. They’re half right and half wrong. I started to resent bloggers/social media influencers who spoke about their mental health journeys with depression and anxiety. I did what they did, why was I not glowing, thriving and happy?
Redefining Trauma
From my conviction to keep trying and not accept this as who I am, I serendipitously got paired with an EMDR therapist. What is EMDR? Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. In more simple terms, a trauma-focused modality of therapy. When my current therapist described it to me, the moment I heard the word trauma, I thought to myself, I don’t need that. That was and is the farthest thing from the truth. If you’re like me, trauma is heavily associated with violence, sexual assault or war. Which is a fair association. However, what if those are extremes of trauma? What is trauma is actually more broad?
I was taught that trauma is any event or experience that is too overwhelming for the nervous system.
When this occurs, the brain sees this as a threat and tries to remember the event as a survival mechanism, to be prepared for next time. However, to be most prepared for the future, the brain forms the memory encapsulating the worst parts so you can detect them and be ready! I think we should commend our lovely brains for this. It certainly served many benefits. But with all great things, there are also downfalls.
Majority are familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When they are at war and a bomb goes off- that is an overwhelming event. The negative parts of the event get stored in the memory so that the brain can quickly recognize it the next time it occurs. However, this memory isn’t context-specific. So, when fireworks light up the sky with explosive sounds, the brain picks up the loud sounds and connects it back to the sound of the bomb and brings the entire body back to the moment the bomb went off at war. So even in safety and possibly many years later, the brain still provokes a reaction from the past.
As children, we are most vulnerable and because of this, many events panicked and overwhelmed the nervous system. These events were stored into memory just like the bomb memory. Except instead of something physically dangerous- it’s emotionally dangerous. Which lead us to having certain beliefs as adults “I am not enough”, “I am unloved”, “I am a failure”, the list goes on. These beliefs can come with certain triggers: someone criticizes you, someone doesn’t pick up the phone when you need them, you get a bad mark. And similar to the fireworks and war veteran, your nervous system panics. So what does this look like?
What Trauma May Look or Feel Like
This is difficult for me to answer because it looks different on everyone. This is what it felt like for me:
Nervous system in overload: uncontrollable, heightened emotional responses that are disproportionate to the event at hand.
In addition to hyper vigilance, anxiety, tension headaches, fear of abandonment, depression, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, adult tantrums, feeling unsafe and rage. It looks like certain behavioural patterns: co-dependency, people pleasing, and for some: disassociating, shutting down or avoiding.
So what if it’s trauma?
I think the boom of self-help is wonderful. But again, with all great things comes drawbacks: although self-help may seem like it- it is not one size fits all. It is far from the truth. If you are feeling stuck, or like cognitive re-thinking is not helping, do not give up. Perhaps your wounds lie deeper. That is more than okay. Perhaps this entire blog did not resonate with you, that is more than okay. The point is, we are all different, so I encourage you to look into different causes, and different treatments. To not get discouraged when a self-help blog has suggestions that no matter how hard you try, don’t work. Keep searching and stay open. It may get exhausting at times but it will be worth it.
Next steps for trauma
If parts of this blog resonated with you, here are a few resources to help deepen your understanding of trauma or treatments to look into. It may be scary to admit it may be trauma especially if you think your trauma may be small…its not. The feelings and pain are real and that is all that matters. Two important disclaimers:
Facing trauma is by no means easy whether capital or lower case-t trauma. But nothing good comes easy.
&
You are not more broken for having trauma, in fact it only deepens your capacity to feel the bad but also the good: the compassion, understanding and love for not only yourself but for others. Don’t believe me? Give it a try and see for yourself
Further Resources
Therapy Modalities:
EMDR Therapy
Somatic Experiencing Therapy
Trauma-Informed Therapy
Books:
Getting Past Your Past by Francine Shapiro
The Body Keeps Score Bessel Van Der Kolk
CPTSD Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker
Platforms:
The Holistic Psychologist
Personal Development School — Thais Gibson
Topics:
CPTSD
Attachment Theory
